Weeeeee another softball review for a paying advertiser !!!  Seriously guys,   You just had to rush this review to give it a good score didn't you ? Where's the high end pvp content review ?  A game that offers no challenge gets a good score ?

Originally posted by Airspell

Weeeeee another softball review for a paying advertiser !!!  Seriously guys,   You just had to rush this review to give it a good score didn't you ? Where's the high end pvp content review ?  A game that offers no challenge gets a good score ?

The game isn't any more or less challenging then other MMO's, so your arguement fails, horribly.

All I know is that SotN is a pretty content-less game.

Grind grind grind, sure its fun for a while, grind grind, group a bit, chat a bit, grind grind...er..quit.

Ive played a lot but it's just mindless grind. Sure some quests are nice, but those are VERY RARE.

Shallow game, good graphics..but typical korean mmo. Graphics + grind = -_-

The MCC system does rock though, made me play for a month. =P So it has that as a good thing.

Originally posted by Darkz0r

All I know is that SotN is a pretty content-less game.

Grind grind grind, sure its fun for a while, grind grind, group a bit, chat a bit, grind grind...er..quit.

Ive played a lot but it's just mindless grind. Sure some quests are nice, but those are VERY RARE.

Shallow game, good graphics..but typical korean mmo. Graphics + grind = -_-

The MCC system does rock though, made me play for a month. =P So it has that as a good thing.

Saying its a typical Korean MMORPG is ignorant. there is no korean MMO that lets you play 3 characters at once, there is no korean MMO that uses a stance system like GE does. There is no Korean MMo that lets you play with NPC characters. Korean MMO's often take months if not years to reach the cap level, but you can reach the cap in SotNW in only 1 ~ 2 months.

Its not more of a grind then a game like WoW or Everquest 2, the only difference is that there are a lot less "Go kill XX" or "Go collect XX' quests, but those things just hide the grind, not remove it.

And yet another so called " review " from someone who hasn`t played enough to give a fair analysis of what this game has to offer.

This statement is competely inaccurate .

 For the long term, it is too repetitive, and easy. It is so easy, in fact, that one can even go AFK and remain in an area filled with mobs (if they aren't too high in level) on auto fight, and upon returning, the mobs will be dead, and the family will still be fighting to live another day. "

Having a family level of 9 myself and playing for 2 months I can assure anyone that this game is not repetetive or easy.

I`m not goin to list all of the reasons since I have allready done this on another thread however with regards to AFK playing , it`s not as easy as that , you will get no loot , you will get low exp in contrast to active playing , you are more likely to be killed than not and after family level 6 you can be killed by other players while your AFK , and yes they do this all the time in order to de level rivals .

I challenge anyone to get a family past level 6 and really find out what the game is about before giving any regard to this kind of mis information.

Grind ? In other mmorpg`s from level 70 and up probably around 4-5% exp from my experiences , in this game 20-30% exp at the same level. In addition for those who don`t know , I play the IAH version and we are getting ready for the implementation of the veteran options which will allow players to access gameplay past level 100 , the introduction of Baron quests and new RNPC`s among other features.

If anyone would like to know more about this game I would be more than happy to answer any questions .

Originally posted by Airspell

Weeeeee another softball review for a paying advertiser !!!  Seriously guys,   You just had to rush this review to give it a good score didn't you ? Where's the high end pvp content review ?  A game that offers no challenge gets a good score ?

There are two ways that you can play SOTNW, easy mode where you fight mobs 5 levels less than you on auto attack.

or

You can fight higher level mobs in rooms you can barely hold and have a crazy fun time.

This review was pretty good stating the bests of Swords of the New World. I want to throw it out there that ive been a veteran mmo player since my 3 years of UO madness. Since that insane addiction ive been struggling mindlessly to find something to give me the same satisfaction. This is not saying this game is anywhere like the calibre of UO, or saying that it has solved this issue. However from bouncing through games such as WOW, LOTR, and finally here, I am very impressed with its delivery. I do not however play Sword of the New World, but the original version of Grenado Espada, none usa release. http://ge.iahgames.com . Community is rather quiet other then the loads of people using world chat for selling items. However i have met a lot of great players from other countries on here that though do not participate in random conversations, will be open to conversing and grouping togather to hit up some of the more challenging areas. If i were have to compare the style of this game, with the graphical content and gameplay ide put it as a FF7 + Diablo decided to have kids and this popped out. Sure in a mmo its very difficult to capture the unique story line of those two games but as for gameplay goes, 3 characters under your control, but fast paced and not turned based fighting system...you have a final fantasy console + diablo fighting system baby. As for the complaint i see often as for not being able to design your players, is where my ff + diablo once again comes into play. You have your generics like the diablo series, but along the way you through quests Granado allows you to gather more RNPC as they are named, key characters to the game which after several quests allow you to add them to your family. This is probably my favorite part of the game because these characters dont contain the same classes as the generics, some are similar but still have their specialty options. I guess the main reason for the jabber and my own review of this game was to note that this should not be compared with other mmo's whether your love it or not. Grindfests are going to happen in EVERY mmo. There is no avoiding this, you will have to sit and level at one point or another. As for story, it has a good premise but ide really like to see where it goes. I dont imagine this as a long long mmo like UO was for me, but from most peoples comments based on this game it seems they installed, tried for a day or so and gave it up without seeing exactly what this game is about. Its not the standard USA mmo that gets more and more kids and adults addicted to video game crack. It has a very addicting aspect, but with the player events, the dueling system generating ladder scores, and the encouraged PK on the PK servers through issueing "Baron Points" and Baron levels i think this game has more potential for long term then most people are giving it. Future updates are in works for the actual launch of Granada Espada, Singapore version, including crafting, more RNPC becoming available, and serverwide events to go with those that already happen. Right now Granada Espada is in Open Beta from the link above, so play for free to any level and see how they run it over there versus how from what i read have screwed it up with k2 running it here in the USA. Sorry for the long post, i just hate when games get floaded with what people hate about them and how they "suck" when there are a lot of great things to this game that will be appealing to anyone that actually enjoys console rpgs, and like to see th innovative ideas that consoles can provide to the mmo community. 

I have to agree with Neomesis .

If you wan`t to try the game you can go over to the international version and there no limit to how far you can play. This way you can get a better idea of what the game has to offer rather than just play up to level 20 on SOTW. There are people there from many different countries and  languages.

The SG ( international version ) will be going commercial within the next few weeks and may opt for a F2P with item shop model however they have not divulged their intentions as of yet and this is a much anticipated announcement .

Why do i get the impression that there is a bias against Korean mmorpg`s ? It seems that although people have not played the game much , they insist that it`s a grindfest simply because it`s a Korean game. Out of any Korean game I have played , this one is the easiest exp yet.

The singapore version is not the international version. Its exactly that, the singapore version. You're allowed to play on the singapore version, but IAH does not have to provide any support to you whatsoever, and they can ban you whenever they like, in fact, IMC games can force them to ban all non - singapore players.

Ha well looks like i better not rock out some of my 1337 speak!!! But ya its the international version to me since its in singapore and im in the usa, but ya its what they call the Sge version. However there are players from all over on the Sge servers, not just Singapore. Its highly unlikely they are going to do a full nonsingapore ban due to location. That would destroy their game and any money making potential. But who knows, i guess time will tell but so far im having great results, and plan on playing past the beta since i aready ordered the special edition kit that comes with a 4 cd soundtrack and 6 months of free gameplay + some more extras. This should give me something to do for a while untill Aion gets closer to launch!

The mmorpg community is becoming so filled with fanbois, its almost sicking at this point. If its a good review its not good enough. if its a bad review its because they haven't plaid the game enough. If someone dares reply to a review, you better watch out as you get cut down instantly because you as a single player reviewer have no clue what your talking about. Its getting to the point of sickness on here.

While I have not played the game, I find the review not on track with itself. 

That is, the description of the review does not appear to match the rating numbers given.  For example, "Beautiful graphics" (not going to copy the entire graphic discussion), but only rates an 8.  I wonder what is needed to earn a 10?  Disappointing review for Role-Playing, but it rates a 7 (for potential?); and again beautiful scenery is stated.

Mixed signals with the Community; no crowds of Afk'ers, but friendly and polite, but quite, but no kill stealers, but not full of bots; rates a 6.  I don't get it...

It's actually one of the better asian mmo's.

but still not as good as our Western mmos.

I have yet to find one Korean game as good as any of our main stream titles. Why would you pay to play this when you can play Asherons Call, DAOC, WoW, UO, EQ 1 or 2, Shadowbane, EVE, GW or AO.

All of these games are leaps and bounds above anything Korea has developed.

shoddy review which fails to cover some basic infomation:

What is the control method - point & click, keyboard, combination of the two?

How big is the world, what methods of travel are there - is the content geared towards solo / group play?

Is the game orientated towards gear and itemisation or is it a skill based deal?

What is the "end game"? Is the game instance or seemless?

Is there any crafting and  how does it work?

What type of economic model does the game run - free market or controlled?

There are many more unanswered questions but  i will just mention these few basic areas that good reviews on this site have normally covered in the past. I dont beleive you would compromise the integrity of the website and write a soft review for an advertiser so lets just give you the benefit of the doubt and assume the reviewer is just inexperianced and the editor is on holiday or recovering in AA today  - this is not what we expect from MMORPG.com

Originally posted by zigmund

 

 

It's actually one of the better asian mmo's.

but still not as good as our Western mmos.

I have yet to find one Korean game as good as any of our main stream titles. Why would you pay to play this when you can play Asherons Call, DAOC, WoW, UO, EQ 1 or 2, Shadowbane, EVE, GW or AO.

All of these games are leaps and bounds above anything Korea has developed.

Well i guess the big question is, is it worth paying just to grind? i play'd the game till cap out of bore'dum i guess and just to try it.. i got tired of the game pretty quick but ppl keep saying "it gets better" well they shoulda made the pre-test cap higher huh

The game wasnt that social to me(that was my biggest turn off) i still play Flyff till this day kuz i kan chat my ass off. So what makes a good game? Surely not good graphics because this game is teeming with it. Prolly the best graphics i've seen in awhile and still move so smooth and the 3 characters u control is unique to MMO's but not RPG's and will proably be copied and improved upon later on.

I'm hoping they'll make a "pet system" with this in mind. Havin an option to control a pet Lion or Tiger or demon, dragon.. whatever.. would be fun with its own unique powers and abilities. SilkRoad and Hero Online are somewhat like this I guess, as well as Rapplez but it dosnt feel like you're playing as the pet too... not to me anyway

But would i pay for this game? no.. but thats my own opinion. it lacks to much to prove any real interest but it has alot potential

Originally posted by Gameloading

The singapore version is not the international version. Its exactly that, the singapore version. You're allowed to play on the singapore version, but IAH does not have to provide any support to you whatsoever, and they can ban you whenever they like, in fact, IMC games can force them to ban all non - singapore players.

 Yes you are correct in that it is hosted in SG however we like to refer to it as the international version because of the large player base from various countries around the globe , the game is also in English language unlike Japan and Korean versions so that it may be suitable for many different people to play.  The largest groups of players are primarily in SG and the Philippines with others from Vietnam , Europe and the United States. There are several hard core factions that have migrated from the Japan version also that include players from various countries including the USA.

As far as support , I`m not clear on what your refering to although I personaly have never known any mmorpg to big on supporting anything but their own residual income lol.

As far as IP banning , IAH has allready said in a statement that there will be no banning of foreign IP`S , but then again you never know whats going to happen .

Our great Staff Writer here has most definitely not played the game nor has she given fair ratings. She has also been self-contradicting throughout her review. The game and and its content is not as "easy" as she has described. There are several NPC quests, several "Hunt" quests, several missions and of course, a fun PvP system. This is not even mentioning the grind and training that you have to go through in order to be eligible for such content.

"Hmmm, I love my eye candy, Nice replicas of real paintings, very beautiful graphics, beautiful people live in beautiful worlds, done by a very very well-renowned artist, this deserves an 8. "

She has mentioned "Beautiful Graphics" all over her report, yet she only gives it an 8 (lol). 

"The game is very fast paced, and while out questing I found that my family is not only sexy, but they are pretty good ass kickers as well. I felt like my family was so beautiful and powerful that we could have probably conquered the world if we so chose to do so"

You were probably level 5 when you felt this way. Not as "easy" as you claim.

"The game, which is published by HandbitSoft, is set in 17th century Europe and takes place in Grando Espada, a new city formed by a king in the west to save his people from war."

"Grando Espada is that place, and it could have very well been created by a world-renowned artist"

This is a very very poor report from a MMORPG contributor. She can't even spell Granado Espada properly, and yes the action is very FACED-paced indeed.

One thing that I feel needs to be emphasized in a review of this game is how very unusual it is for an MMO.   I wouldn't even call it that, really. Many people would come to this game expecting certain features found in every other MMO out there and be dissapointed.  No background chatter, no cluttered markets, no camping, no one LFG, no downtime, etc.  You would think that the absence of these sometimes tedious things would be a good thing, but it seems that the whole genre is dependant on them.  The game does get funner as you advance, and more challenging, but the basic, repetetive play remains the same throughout.   I would say that style is the major attraction of this game.

The MCC is new to the MMO world, and as a feature, brought me back to my days playing a game like Zelda, an old-school RPG.

Wow - what an eyestabby line of bull. Just by itself, this sentence destroys any faith I might have had in the credibility of the reviewer. I heartily second all of the legitimate criticism of this review. What a waste.

  Whether you think the game sucks, like me, or beleive it r0x, like Gameloading does, we can all agree that this was a crappy review I think. LOL

While the game was very pretty I just didn't get caught up in it. I didn't go very far granted but it just wasn't something for me. The graphics had me excited. this is one way to prove not to judge a book by its cover. I have a very short attention span and I have most likely bypassed a lot of good games because of it but You have to catch me up front and fast. Maybe its my computer but it just didn't move well for me. I hated having to whistle for the other two. i found that very annoying to say the least.

While we have all played multi character parties on consul games and on PC games but I just wasn't comfortable with the format in this game. I will  most likely go back one more time but i only go 2x to a game before i call it quits.

Just my 2 cents

Ya this is a big reason i added more information about this game because the review fails to mention a lot of key aspects to the game that i believe make it what it is. I try not to dog on any mmorpg unless it truly is crap. I think the mindsets of all these games will appeal to that certain person and thats why some will say it sucked, some will love it. I happen to enjoy playing this game, I'm currently around the lvl48 mark with my family level about to hit its 5. As you start approaching the more difficult dungeons you start requiring the help of others more often. At the beginning grinding gets alittle repetitive but as does any game. I think i hated life more then life could be hated when i went to GM both alchemy and poisoning on UO. This process took well over a few weeks for me, because one i was broke and had to stop and make money to buy more supplies, but also because its such a hard thing to level and takes some serious grinding to GM these. I think i lost my mind 3 to 4  times in the process but finally i got there. And thats the satisfaction with grinding in any game, is that when you get to that goal it feels great, but its not easy and its not fast. These games have to be designed around a leveling system that allows the game to keep going on, if i spent the time i do grinding here or any mmo and put that same time into grinding a console rpg, ide max level within a few days easy.  You can sit in low level dungs here and let your characters do all the work but this process will take you easily 5-6 days to even gain 2,3 levels once you start breaking 30. This is where the community comes in, this is also where most people never get to because they never play the game past level 20, which is rather easy to get to. I find myself partying with 3-4 other people and taking on challenging dungs, ones well above our levels and seeing the level gains at a faster rate. Also when partying with others, a exp accelerator kicks into gear which allows for faster gains. I'm not hear to defend this game because yes its not perfect, but as to me WOW is over populated as LOTR is getting, i "personally" enjoy a community that may not talk as much, but also has a good helpful nature when people do need help. One big thing Ive noticed in dungs is if your team goes down, almost all players in the area will stand above your bodies and clear the monsters while you await to be res'd. That is by far the best thing Ive ever seen in a mmo in a long time. People youve never talked to willing to risk their lives as well in attempt to allow you to gain yours back.  I die a lot, the reviewer states you can run into a room and annihilate everything...BS...maybe when your lvl 30 and run into a lvl 20 dung filled room, but screw that on a later scale. I get my arse handed to me so often i  think i lost count, but its great to see the other players that come by to help you get back on your feet and this is a big part of how i met all the people i currently party with now.

Just FYI for previous poster,

The game is point and click not keyboard controlled. Big reason i put Diablo and Final Fantasy console styles together in the gameplay on this. Its alittle tricky at first since i lost touch after my UO days, but it works really well allowing full zoom in and out, rotation full 360 and options based on click to either attack everything where you clicked, just run there, or gather items on the ground.

To answer also another post, it kind of has a pet system. You can earn creature gems through missions, meaning kill this many of this creature and earn its gem. At that point you can summon that creature until it dies. One cool thing about this plus the dungeons, there is what they call a pioneering statue at the beginning or every dung level and in every section of the main world where combat will go down. This gives you the option to select a creature to hunt, or several, and it will then become a quest for you. So this makes the grinding levels process alittle faster because once you complete the select amount of monsters, revisit the stone and you receive a exp card for a exp bump. This last week the Sge servers were having a small issue, so in response the staff made it double exp weekend for the inconvenience. Was pretty neat, as i had this weekend off to work on some leveling so this helped a lot.

Seriously, the posters here (whether they like or dislike the game) are giving more information than the review.

The reviewer and editor(s) for this review were asleep at the wheel this time.

Thank you, posters, for offering more information on the game I wanted to know. Reviewer, please play the game more and explore all aspects of game, it's nice you saw some people group families, but it also woulda been nice if you tried grouping and told us what it's like.

Originally posted by maveric007

The mmorpg community is becoming so filled with fanbois, its almost sicking at this point. If its a good review its not good enough. if its a bad review its because they haven't plaid the game enough. If someone dares reply to a review, you better watch out as you get cut down instantly because you as a single player reviewer have no clue what your talking about. Its getting to the point of sickness on here.

Originally posted by Dexeunt

The MCC is new to the MMO world, and as a feature, brought me back to my days playing a game like Zelda, an old-school RPG.

Wow - what an eyestabby line of bull. Just by itself, this sentence destroys any faith I might have had in the credibility of the reviewer. I heartily second all of the legitimate criticism of this review. What a waste.

I have to agree, that statement makes no sense at all. the multi character control system reminds the reviewer of a game in which you play a single character in a game that couldn't possibly be more different from SotNW...?

The Zelda statement did make me laugh though :)

I don't understand some of the ratings though, like 6 for community when almost everything the reviewer says about it is positive

what I also don't understand is that the review says "Monthly Fee (unusual for game type)" as a con point

is it really that unusual for a mmo to have monthly fee, did I understand it wrong somehow?

or does every mmo with monthly fee get that as a con?

Originally posted by Dilweed

The Zelda statement did make me laugh though :)

I don't understand some of the ratings though, like 6 for community when almost everything the reviewer says about it is positive

what I also don't understand is that the review says "Monthly Fee (unusual for game type)" as a con point

is it really that unusual for a mmo to have monthly fee, did I understand it wrong somehow?

or does every mmo with monthly fee get that as a con?

She's probably a freeloader  =[ or she's trying to say it isn't the usual MMORPG and should be recognized as more of a MMORTS title and should therefore be free .

Ha maybe instead of using the MMC system to its full advantage the reviewer decided to just use one character from their family?  But ya im with you all on the Zelda statement. I dont get a single feeling that this game acts or controls like zelda. Way different premise, i think the only thing thats the same is hack and slash.

"Western MMO's are not better then Asian MMO's, and Asian MMO's are not better then Western MMO's, they are different"

If you consider having little content, little customization, and lots and lots of grinding and using the word different to describe them, I would beg to differ.

Asian MMO's are like a ferrari with a hampster in a wheel cage in place of the motor.  They spend all the time on the graphics engine and when it comes to adding content, they have to put it in production to pay for it.  Once out there is never any urgency to replace the missing content.

Sword of the New World fits this mold quite well, hence it will never do well in the US or European marketplace.

Its easy to make statements without proving to yourself or more importantly us how you come to these conclusions. We can argue all day on who makes a better mmo, but in the end its just mindless chatter. Who has the most subscribers doesnt mean a mmo is the best there is. And as of now there are no standards to what make a perfect mmo. If your entertained, its a good game to you. Just as a person posted earlier, people argue just to argue. The industry is so flooded with people that really have no idea what they're taking about because you cannot make comments to represent a whole. You represent yourself, and thats it. So please frain from using comments that are so generalized and have no merit or backing to help us understand in detail your reasoning. Also provide how your information is credible to what you have achieved and what you have personally done in this industry. If you have two years of one mmo and play another for one month, this is not credible since your style is going to be very vague ad your understanding of the industry is also vague. This being said, the best we can do on this thread is really question the review itself since it seemed more like a Preview article then a review article. When i read a review i like to get a big feel about what im going into.

Here are a few links to forum posts of sme users of the Sge version. This so called lack of content is BS.

http://forum.iahgames.com/ge/showthread.php?t=188 (This is a list of the RNPC that you can acquire and add to your family) True the game starts at a basic fighter, mage, gunner, healer concept but its the RNPC thats add the true value to the game. RNPC that you can gather later in the game add a lot more dimension in the character development. You can gain npc that utilize cannons as their weapon, kick boxing bsed npc that use nothing but hand and foot, a muai tai fighter is being added soon, summoner can be gained at higher levels, not to mention the characters that add such brute force, added str, and utilization of stronger and more unique weapons.)

http://forum.iahgames.com/ge/showthread.php?t=12793 ( A full list of quests compiled by one of the players. This list is out-dated but shows some more of the games storyline and content)

This is just some additional informaton for those who are curious enough to play it for more then a week.

This is merely the result of people commenting without having played the game themselves and basing all their thoughts on second-hand experience which is usually inaccurate and variable. They also base their thoughts on a closed-minded belief that all Asian MMORPGs are the same , lacking content and having good graphics, while all Western MMORPGs have OK graphics but fairly huge content. This results in making comments that are misleading and unverifiable .

Using the same comparison as Ozmodan, a non-Asian MMORPG would have a 1930 crappy Model T as its frame and a motor for its engine. Games like Runescape fit this mold very well. A very vague comparison indeed, ignoring the fact that Runescape sucks.

Back to the horrible review, she even said the game was developed by "HandbitSoft" (Yeah, it's spelt wrong.) instead of IMC Games, lack of research (Zelda is not MCC), lack of review depth (Probably didn't get strong enough to PvP), and perhaps lack of time spent actually playing the game or even writing the review (spelling mistakes, not even proofreading your own writing). Lack of effort from the writer leads to lack of interest from the readers.

Ya I may eventually write a more informative review, without ratings but more in the area of explaining how the game works, what you can and cant do, features it has that others dont, features it should have but doesnt ect. I think this game really needs to be brought some justice since a lot of what is coming from people is a uninformed decision to post random inaccurate information about a game that truly has a lot more dimension and detail then its getting credit for. Most posts are so vague in discussing its great qualities vs. its poor qualities.(And there are a few things that I personally would like to see from this game thats currently not included or things that really need improvement.)

i love the avator

A good review helps a potential gamer / customer to purchase a game by imparting information that only playing the game can provide. Devoting space to telling me how pretty the game is pretty pointless as i can see the screenshots. Subjective statements like good, fun etc are again pretty pointless if you dont explain the basic mechanics of the game. This review is shoddy because the reviewer does not understand the basics of imparting information and fails to cover whole areas of game play. A review is always subjective but at least explain to us how the game works....

These are reviews: http://www.armchairempire.com/Reviews/PC%20Games/age-of-wonders-ii-the-wizards-throne.htm

http://www.strategyinformer.com/pc/civilizationivbeyondthesword/review.html

I know that MMORPG has limited funds but these type of "reviews" make people think that you are taking money from advertisers to write stuff or worse are simply incompetent. Look at the above links, Do you see the difference? If your not going to do it properly, then dont do it at all and stick to "news" and previews instead.

Not ranting without purpose - MMORPG has the potential to be a really good site but recently it just seems to be slacking. Id i could find anything better, i would stop posting and visting and go somewhere else but this site is the best of a poor bunch - i just wish it would raise it standards a bit.

Well I did not make my comments uninformed, I beta tested this game and I stand by my comments that it has very little content.  Maybe you can explain to me where all the content was that I missed, not like beta testing something you can try everything out.

I also did not like the game much because it really encourages solo play by everyone.  I personally like to play with others, but I rarely found anyone that wanted to group.

You must also consider the staff supporting this game.  I have played previous games they support and let me say the support is dismal.  I have my doubts that we will see any change with this game.  Hence the people that abuse games will run rampant with this one.  More often than not these abusers ruin the game for the rest and without a staff controlling them, I don't see a good future for this game.

My interpretation of the review:

GRAPHICS:  If you are easily swayed by pretty pictures and do not care about having a unique avatar, you'll love it!

FUN:  Even though an MMOG is supposed to cultivate something of a long-term interest, I knew this one would grow tiresome after a few weeks.  But allow me to talk up the good points anyway!

ROLEPLAY:  No one actually does it in this game, but you could if you wanted to!

SOUND:  The sound didn't make me want to shove icepicks into my ears, so I'm giving it a good score!

CUSTOMER SERVICE:  (Okay, she actually addressed important questions here, so I can't be snarky.  Damn.)

COMMUNITY:  There is absolutely no interaction with other players in this massively multiplayer game, but at least no one tries to st33l ur killz!

VALUE:  This game is worth exactly $0, and that is what you should spend on it.

Pros:  Plenty of fluff!

Cons:  There is no game here.

OVERALL SCORE:  7.4 (Good) because unless a game causes your motherboard to explode, it is against the policy of MMORPG.com to give a critical review.

Ha thats great, and you speak exactly what i would interpret this game to be like if i were to base games off reviews like this. However since i tend to like the movies critics rate medium or poor, this isn't the same for games, but I'm lucky to decide first hand to try this game regardless of this review or really any review since there seems to be so many(ha the few reviews for this game all basically are just as bad as this one is on outlining what the game actually is and does). But through my investigations it has turned out to be a great game so far, most of the best action has started once i was high 20's and knocking out some harder dungs. I wonder if people played the first 20 levels expecting it to be challenging, when basically these levels are designed to really help you get the hang of the game and its control structure since it is a different style then anything we've played before. It would be pure madness and i think more people would leave this game after getting their ass beat in the first dungeon then the people that left because they claim it to be too easy. The review says you can let your characters do all the work and basically afk while this happens. Ha I put my family in a lvl 32 dung last night and the characters i were using were around lvl 39. I had a new gun stance i wanted to level so this wasn't an attempt to level my characters, just the stance since stances are leveled based on uses. Needless to say i decided to crash out, just to check on it an hour later and all my players were DEAD. Probably got one of those mass spawns which just wiped me out. When your character resurrects from dieing, it doesn't start fighting again either, it just stands there and gets rocked again and again. Meaning for this pointless blabber is really to push some more education about some of how the game works. Also ide like to note me getting me ass ripped bad on dungeon Porto Bello which is a level 38 dung and the chars i was using were 40. This game is not easy, i learned this the hard way expecting every dungeon as i progressed to be the same walk in, kick some ass, and take some names. I believe my death count on last nights questing in Porto Bello to be above the 30's, all in all it was a great time as me and the other two people i was with were trying to get stabilized after dieing so we could then again make a stance against the endless mobs getting ready for the next round.

What kind of content were you looking for? This is not me calling you out in anyway at all. Im just curious to what you look for as in content vs. what maybe some others feel is labeled as content. I personally Will list content as available things you can do other then the endless grinds. This being said i wont claim this game has tons of content/features available other then the constant grinding but i will say it does have enough to keep most people occupied. The quests are fun and surprisingly they don't tend to stray much from the initial storyline, and additional quests become available for certain RNPC that you acquire later in the game. I think the multiple stances and fighting/skills available is pretty well designed and actually pretty fair. I know many people during the UO days would always complain because of my list of legendary skills but this game has a good balance. You can only become SO good and then it will be based on your actual ability to interpret the game or the player you may be facing in PVP. But in a lot of mmorpgs out right now, the list of abilities usually are directly under the one class. I enjoy how this game has made it so the recruitable NPC's throughout the game have a unique mix of new classes and skills. I think one big feature that a lot of players look for into any mmo is a form of crafting. Right now Granada has a real basic form of crafting which I'm not proud of. But one thing if you use any common sense you will see most of the items you pick up throughout dungeons are a form of ore. As of now there is really no use for this ore other then selling it, but its said a crafting system is going to launch when Granada Espada launches. We will see. Other features other then actual game play ones would be its ladder system for pvp. So you can at anytime challenge someone to a duel and under your profile it will show your wins / loses and rate you on the ladder scale. I get duel requests all day long so this game is not lacking player ambition to interact in a more physical way with other players lol. I am as of this post 0-3 in duels, ya I still suck at them but I'm getting the hang of it. The additional monster quests and monster ember quests give you some more incentive while you do some grinding. If you join a faction, and its encouraged since this is one great way of meeting people but this also allows you to participate in the Sunday night faction wars, which is a server wide event that allows factions to try and claim some of the territory available in Granada. I'm just like you when it comes to community and interaction. This game doesn't discourage group playing as i see it based on my post before this. While the dungeons get harder and harder you really want to squad when challenging these places. As of before level 50 there is no penalty for death since you will just be res'd over time. But once you hit the 50 mark you can now be PK'd and you can also start Pking to earn those PK Points(Baron Points). Also you are not auto res'd over time. This is a big reason to be squading at these later levels since if you go down, your down unless you log off. I found at the beginning dungeons people were just doing their day to day breakfast grinds, but as i started hitting the enemies that actually hit back(they all hit back, just a little sarcasm lol) more and more people all over want to squad and team up. I went from just around 3 friends on my list to around 30 from level 25-40. The market system is pretty sweet in finding those much wanted items you either want to buy or sell. Another game feature i found to be pretty neat is that the items that are selling for 2-5million vis(game coinage, and this is a lot) such as the control rings for the Summoner RNPC, and several other rings which can be found at any dungeon and at any level as a random drop. I funded all my new weapons and items up until where I'm at right now with a random control ring drop that i picked up ha. This left me with a nice 1.5mil bank account at a low level. I'm curious if i can type anymore, i guess thats what boredom at work allows you to do heh.

Honestly....u r talking about content for MMOs, are they ANY content in an mmo that doesnt exist in another one?

this is purely based on my opinion, so fanbois please bash away:

Pretty much every MMO nowadays have very little "content"  imo, its how they package the grind that seperates them from the rest of the bunch.
Wow fanbois will jump in here and question me about their quests, i'm sorry, killing 20 of A, gather 100 pieces of B, killing 10 of C, D and E and gather the pieces so the door of F will open are not "quests", they r simply use to make grinding all pretty and it makes u feel like u r doing something useful. Quests are when u actually do something useful, the so-called "epic story quests" are quests, granted there are a few in WoW, but its so few and far in between its just like any other MMO.

Then i'll mostly be questioned for PvP, the "end-game content", while i do agree PvP is content, pretty much every game out there has PvP too standardize to consider it as anything "above other MMO". However, I feel that Clan battles, Sieges and organize battles can be consider "end-game content" in a sense that it takes knowledge and cooperation among members in the game to do well. Ganks and 1v1 battle however i tend to discard that as "content"

After PvP, its crafting system and the economy. Crafting is the only content i feel exist in WoW, the multi-dimension crafting system is wat impresses me and in this sense and i feel WoW deserves credit for it (even though its copied from Runescape). This i feel is the "little" content that exist in WoW.

I'm not defending SoNW per se, but when u question the game for content, are you truly aware of what content really means? are u truly playing a game with content? or a game that claims it has contents? I agree that SoNW has very very little content as of now(dunno wat they'll add in the future) but can you say there are tons of other games out there that has WAY MORE content than this game?

BTW i'm only using WoW as an example becuz majority of the people who discredit other games for "content" tend to use WoW as a game with "a whole lot of content".

Imo, the one game that truly has a lot to do, a lot of content is FFXi. I played it, i enjoyed it, i quited it. The epic quests, the hunt for rare weapons, the crafting system, flexible job system and the pet raising in that game can all be considered "content". Its a game where u will truly "have a lot to do". HOWEVER, the game is not without its downside (too party based, "grind", outdated graphics, and among many others).

So next time before u question a game for content, think hard wat "content" really means, and does the game u r currently playing have that much more "content" compare to the one u r about to bash?

This is exactly how i feel about the perception of games vs. content. When it comes to mmo's i just play them now for fun factor and if i myself is having fun. I cant find anything that can compare to what Ultima Online offered as for "content" and things to do. I mean come on you could setup your character to be a master cook, carpenter and tamer, but also have it sword fighting while hiding and stealthing in and out of town. So after my ultima days i was biased at any game ide go to looking for this same "content" or what i thought and what i knew to be what i enjoyed. But a friend invited me to play some Star Wars Galaxies and eventually after i ignored the things i generally looked for in a mmorpg i started liking it and what it had to offer. From there i went to FF11, EQ2, Lineage 2, WOW then LOTR(for a month or so) and all these games were good games. I didn't stop playing them because i was bored, i stopped because of over population, all rares being camped night and day, and this is what turns me off from games. This is also why i enjoy SOTNW now because the community isn't over populated. If it were ever to get huge like a WOW or the way LOTR is heading ide eventually quit and move to the next thing for a new experience. This being said though its in reference to the post before me, the post is extremely right when it comes to content in these games. The one game i really thought would get me hooked for many years to come was Wish by Mutable Realms, but was canceled due to lack of players. This game was a UO remake kind of but added so so many new things to the way the mmorpg games would have functioned, and was extremely player/story organized with daily newspapers plus the world was to mimic the kind of worlds Bethesda puts in is elder scroll series...HUGE. So the lesson I'm trying to portray is that if you base a game on what features it has, and while playing it you are comparing it to a previous experience with another game, you'll never be happy with new games coming out since you will have that been there done that attitude and you will ultimately ignore the fun you can have. Players make a game, not the game itself. Every game can be a wonderful experience for you if you meet the right kind of people that challenge you mentally and create a sense of pleasure and satisfaction you can get from interactive friendships through mmo communities. This is why mmo have become such a huge part of gamers lives and now people that were never gamers before. They allow you to create friendships based on this interactive community regardless of race, culture, country ect... This is the biggest thing i look for in a mmo now, and really the only thing that matters to me personally anymore. If the game is good enough for people to play and continue to play, then its good enough for you to meet these people over the course of time and enjoy many many quality times.

Originally posted by Hexxeity

My interpretation of the review:

GRAPHICS:  If you are easily swayed by pretty pictures and do not care about having a unique avatar, you'll love it!

FUN:  Even though an MMOG is supposed to cultivate something of a long-term interest, I knew this one would grow tiresome after a few weeks.  But allow me to talk up the good points anyway!

ROLEPLAY:  No one actually does it in this game, but you could if you wanted to!

SOUND:  The sound didn't make me want to shove icepicks into my ears, so I'm giving it a good score!

CUSTOMER SERVICE:  (Okay, she actually addressed important questions here, so I can't be snarky.  Damn.)

COMMUNITY:  There is absolutely no interaction with other players in this massively multiplayer game, but at least no one tries to st33l ur killz!

VALUE:  This game is worth exactly $0, and that is what you should spend on it.

Pros:  Plenty of fluff!

Cons:  There is no game here.

OVERALL SCORE:  7.4 (Good) because unless a game causes your motherboard to explode, it is against the policy of MMORPG.com to give a critical review.

LOL   

Coming to MMORPG.COM for a pertinent review of a game is like tuning into Fox News for unbiased news.

You might as well look for stock tips in the Enquirer. Youll have better luck.

Just started a free account and one thing I will agree with the reviewer on is the game seems fun in small doses, especially coordinating your attacks across several characters.

I have a question for veterans: how does the whole Republican vs Royalist system work? At higher levels is there an actual battle between the two factions going on? Also, I saw some ballot boxes so I'm guessing there's a political element, although I didn't see any current candidates.

Ya if you play it solo then it tends to get kind of boring if grinding is on your schedule. But once you start squadding the fun tends to last a lot longer because the shriveled raisin balls you once had as a solo quester just became melons and you think you can take on dungeons 6 levels above you now that there are 2 or 3 of you doing it. Tends not to be the case once one of your idiot gunners decides to shoot the barrel or box that just spawned which then spawns 20 more high level creatures on top of you. Thats when it gets interested lol, if you've played this, you will know what I'm talking about...im the guy screaming at my dumb ass musketeer for screwing me over once again. As for the political system ya they do have battles, between the royalist and republicans. A level 52 faction, or may be 53, can decide to side politically with one or the other and are then put into the political system. They have special events for these things and i believe you get a certain level perk based on the side you choose. BTW Lisa Lynway kicks some ass...her dagger abilities are amazing. I'm seriously contemplating replacing my fighter with her. Cant wait to see the dual dagger stance at level 45.

/em wonders if NeoMesis's return key is broken.

Ha is this in reference to my extremely long, comma infested, completed run on type sentence? And in response to that, I blame it on crack. Otherwise i have no clue what your comment was based off of lol.

Hey for anyone that is actually interested in playing this game, but doesn't care if its the USA version(Sword of the New World), you can still sign up for the open beta on the English Singapore version(Granado Espada) and they just announced their business plan today for how the game will be paid on as of launch on August 30th. The best thing is if you sign up and play the open beta and you get at least one of your character to level 20, when they launch the game on the 30th everyone with a lvl20 or above character will receive 90 days of free game play once launched. They also are going to be a pay to play system with a cash shop. But the coolest thing is the money you pay to play each month, 5.40usd / 40usd for the year, will also give you that amount in credit to the cash shop. So you pay your monthly, and then you get credits to the cash shop as well to buy those premium items. This is just some FYI for anyone interested. Here is the full article on the business plan they came up with. http://ge.iahgames.com/en/news/?aid=219&sec=1&ssec=4 , you can also sign up for the open beta and download the client from there as well.

I didn't really care for the game that much when I tried it (though that review was pretty worthless...) from what ive played, theres one quest every 5 levels or so (a few more at the early levels) although the game never tells you who gives the quests or if you have a quest available for some reason.  The quests you do get are fairly decent, although require you to have a healer on your team (which is something i do find slightly annoying, whats the point of saying:  You can make a team with these chars, if your forced to use certain ones anyway?).  Note:  Whenever someone mentions content, these instanced missiosn type of quests are what they are talking about imo.  For instance, most of CoH missions would be considered content, WoWs kill x missions...not so much, but maybe its instanced dungeons would be.

 But after level like 10 or so, you get 1 quests every 10 hours of playtime or less, making them a rather moot point in the end.  Most of the time, all your doing is finding a good spot for your family to whack monsters, possibly using skills, and then looting off of the monsters they kill.  For hours on end.  Korean style griding at its finest. boooorrring.   Eventually i got sick of it and stopped playing.  Good graphics and by far the best music in any MMO, bar none though.

Ya this game isn't a questing based mmo, but are you referring to sotnw or granado espada. In essence they are the same game, same engine. But from what Ive heard there are different quests on the USA one vs granado espada. Please someone correct me if I'm wrong. I usually just do the quests for either the rnpc cards so i can start using them, and for the exp cards. Other then that i don't use the questing element for further story development. I find it as a extreme challenge to implement a questing based mmo while also being able to allow alternatives. My ideal mmo would have a story based questing system but hell i don't mind the grind as well. I find myself grinding a lot in this game, but i found friends early in this game which has made grinding much like a permanent quest. I will always argue that its people and their imaginations that make any type of role playing adventure. The things that have stuck me on this game is really the amazing graphical content, the control system allowing 3 people and i love being able to get new characters throughout the game. Reminds me of my console final fantasy days as you progress through the game and you get one of the npc saying "hey ide like to go with you on your journey may i join your team? " And yes i find the music fantastic. It really pulls the environment together. To each his\her own.

Was bored with this game inside of 2 hours.

Ha bored within 2 hours? If i gave up on things after boredom in two hours, shit ide have never finished the Lord of the Rings movie series. But hung in there and things got a lot better. However that does not mean this game will get better for you. We all have those game thats work well for us and don't work at all. A hack and slash will take a while to get boring to me, however playing street fighter will lose its flavor after about 10 minutes of game play. I can play Quake 3 arena for hours, but guitar hero gets boring fast for me. Just because it gets boring to you, doesn't mean its not awesome to someone else. This game has almost 400,000 active users on the English Singapore servers alone.  So it didn't get boring for them I guess.

Lol just my opinion MMO's are what I love wasn't saying it was gonna suck for everyone.

Ha I hear ya, I have a hard time sticking with any mmo. I just got my M'Boma RNPC card which was a total whore, extremely hard considering i was 3 levels below the recommended level. In the end i had a elemantalist/wizard that can levitate ;). I think thats what keeps me playing is the want to get to the next levels so i can attempt their quests and get that character so i can start using them. There are some sweet consoles coming out soon which will probably draw my attention away from mmo's(One can hope cant he). Cant wait for Assassins Creed, Heavenly Sword and I think Folklore looks great too!

neoMesis, I know you're trying to garner support for your game, but do you really need a ginormous wall of text to get your simple point across?

I don't get what the rage with the graphics was with this game. I hated them. Everything was light and the bloom.. oh god the bloom of doom!

Yeah the textures were nice and crisp at least...

This game is pretty to the point of being nauseating. Where are the tough looking scar infested, eyepatch wearing fuglies?
 No, you won't find anything but prettyboys and hot babes here.

Emilin, you are right. neoMesis should really try to reduce his number of words per post. Answering each time six lines for a one-line reply is a little to much.

That being said... Emilin, Sword of the New World is not a pirate game! If you want eyepatched characters, go play the pirate-based games already out or wait for those that are not to do so. SotNW is a post-colonisation game in a baroque setting. The art designers of the game tried to reconstruct this feel through the game. Everything "needs" to be pretty. If you don't like this style, you won't like the graphics.

You realized that the textures were "nice and crisp". Me too and it's the first thing I saw when I decided to finally try this game this week. If you want them to look even better, turn off the bloom effect. Yes, it can be turned off through the option menu. I personnaly play with it off.

And before I end this reply, I want to say that you can have your scar people if you want. You can even take them in your family. The gun seller, Najib Sharif, and the sword seller, Claude Baudez, both have only one eye and you can clearly see their scar.

But I don't think that all this will convince you to try the game again, even though that wasn't my goal.

The great thing about my walls of text...oh ya they give information on previous questions. Maybe if either of you decided to read previous posts throughout this entire thread you'd have realized that my true intention isn't to sell this game,  but to fill information from where the Review extremely lacked. This thread was started in reference to the review, and how poorly it constructed its output to what readers were wanting to know. That being said, I have dedicated many value posts to this thread to clear this huge absence of information regarding the game. Sometimes a one sentence post works, but instead how about i save myself and forum lag by creating one database entry instead of several covering the same questions over and over again. One post, outlining several points and creating this "wall of text" will create less server strain, faster load times and allow for readers that care to get more informed about the questions that mattered to them. If you decide not to read the wall, don't. Its just a large post, like most of mine, considering I'm not here to climb the who can gather the highest post record. I came here to clear misleading facts about yet another game on mmorpg.com but I'm allowed the chance to correct the flaws because i actually gave the game enough time(not being a one week, lets write a review) to get a clear understanding of how the game works.

I have been playing this game for 3 months and had a lot of fun in that time.  I have clocked heaps of game time.  The game is now losing its appeal as the high levels are a real grind.

Mmorg.com's review gives a good overview.  There have been some changes since the review.

It is now free to play.  You have the option of spending real life money to  purchase "items" for use in the game.

As the game world is still fairly new,  Colony Wars will not start until more  players and clans (guilds) attain higher levels.  This will give additional pvp content.

I have been playing on Illier server for a while now and i can say that most of the people posting here probably have playied not longer than a couple hours.

As it has been said earlier in the thread this game is far from "grind-only" typical korean MMORPG , actually you can reach Veteran in a couple months and start to fully enjoy other parts of the game,which are many but you just won't listen so i will save myself the effort to list them.

Also i don't get how you can say that it's gameplay is similar to other ones , you can like it or not i'm not here to argue that ,but i had yet to see a game with this kind of gamplay.

At the end of the day now i remember why ages ago i stopped to browse this kind of sites, because all you get is cheap infos from people that have no clue about what they are talking about since most of the time didn't get past the early levels.

Have fun.

I downloaded this game this weekend and I was impressed. The controlls take some time to get used to and I was put off by the fact that it was a point and click interface but now that I started thinking it as a RTS I'm getting more used to it. The review is way to short as so many other people have said. Also, I would like to note that this game works wonderfully with the www.iz3d.com 3D monitor. I'm really tempted to keep playing this game because of how much cooler it looks in 3D compaired to WoW.

Also, does anyone notice SofNW is not listed in their forums section here on mmorpg.com? I have to go to the game page and click on forums to get to it.

New name (Formerly Sword of the New World, now Sword 2) same crap.  

This game is very, very, very pretty, and has a really good soundtrack.  That's where it ends.

The game is nothing but a grind fest, with the same repetitive quests (just with different monster names to hunt, same procedure EVERY time) and weak, poorly translated storyline loosely connecting *some* characters to it all.  For Christ's sake, they even have an AFK FEATURE because of how much of a grind fest this game is.  If you can't leave your computer on 24/7, don't bother.  The raids are bosses that are killed in about two minutes after farming about 4 - 5 hours on average for materials to raid with, only to drop what you need about 1 out of every 60 times or so, and that's not even for endgame gear (thats 1 item to spread among the 3 - 5 people required for worthwhile raids every 60 times you ALL do it).

The community is literally the *worst* community you'll ever encounter on an MMORPG (or anywhere for that matter), specifically on the Orpesia server (don't believe me, log in and check broads :)).

The customer service takes at least a month and a half to get a response from, content is delivered hrm.... about 6 - 9 months on average after its promised.  Try going on their forums and checking it out for yourself before you download

http://forums.gamersfirst.com
/index.php?showforum=155&setlanguage=1&langid=en&setskin=1&skinid=11

And see how they deal with people with concerns about the future of the game... see how fast their topics get locked and their forum accounts get banned.  Go on there and check the rants the EMPLOYEES of the company go on at people who have questions/concerns about the way they run it.  Doesn't matter if you're hostile or not, you'll still get banned.  Don't believe me?  Go try it, or search for posts from someone like Raiden.  

End game is COMPLETELY locked on ALL servers, with each new patch promising to "bring salvation and balance the game."  Load of crap, frankly, which after you log in for the first time, hit Alt+W and see the world map you'll realize exactly what I mean :).  If you aren't in the top 2 clans, you might as well not play.  If you're a new player, you might as well not play.  If you aren't willing to spend over $150 (no exaggeration, thats a low number) on this game's cash shop... yep, you guessed it, you might as well not play!

This game, while starting off promising, has since (in the past two years or so), basically become a cash cow for GamersFirst to milk (and if any of you have played *any* game by GamersFirst, you know to stay away).  Any yes, I've played this game for a good 4 years or so, since right after Beta.  It was hard to let all that invested time and money go.  Don't let it happen to you.

I could go on and on, but the moral of the story is if you're stupid enough to actually start playing this game at this point, then you deserve to lose every last penny that K2/G1 will milk out of you and spit in your face for.
 

So we got a purchase price, monthly fee and a cash shop for this ehm westernised game ehm well let's just say i think that's a bit steep for this game. The review was ok though I 'd say. I like them direct. Thanks

Great looking game. But character customization is a joke and the combat system turned me off after 2 days, it just didn't work for me.

But I do really love the art, and for once it is a MMO with realistic trees.